A black box in your car could track your every move in the near future.
The federal government and several states are considering taxing drivers by the mile to raise funds to repair America's rundown roads and bridges, Bloomberg reported.
"It's a laudable idea, in principle," the outlet noted. "But supporters are going to have to give more thought to the privacy issues raised by mandating devices capable of plotting your car's location and reporting on how you are driving it."
The fee would augment the money garnered through the federal gasoline tax, which has remained at 18.4 cents per gallon since 1993. Many American roads are crumbling while more than a fifth of bridges around the country are no longer useful or are "deemed structurally deficient."
California and 17 other states along the I-95 highway are looking at the black box option to gather funds that would be earmarked for road repairs.
While some say the fee would unfairly penalize drivers who purchase vehicles with greater fuel economy, Bloomberg argues that people with more efficient cars tend to drive them more, causing increased wear and tear on the roads.
A greater concern would be the privacy issue, according to Bloomberg. Those on both far ends of the political spectrum, namely the American Civil Liberties Union and the Tea Party, vehemently oppose the idea.
The distinction between the black boxes and technologies such as mobile phones or GPS navigation systems is obviously the user's choice or lack thereof. Drivers can turn off their phones or GPS systems, while the black box would not be so negotiable.
According to the Bloomberg editorial, supporters of the mileage tax concept should ensure that the black boxes simply count the miles without retaining any information about how the car is driven.
"What we do and where we go in our cars is our business and nobody else's," the editorial said.
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